A spammer could very straightforwardly get as many votes as they wanted by creating sufficient accounts to that end. This would be exactly as effective as a dialog on the submit page that says “Put the letter after Q in the alphabet in the dialog to submit”: ie it will stop any bot that is not tuned to this site, but allow through any that is.
Not giving zero-Karma users leave to vote will stop this breach as well. (A more thorough solution would involve a form of conserved Karma currency—I wonder if this is in use anywhere—you could even introduce advanced instruments such as Karma loans.)
Yes, requiring karma to vote would stop this and would I think be a good idea, though it’s more development effort still. After that, see Raph Levien’s paper on “Attack Resistant Trust Metrics”.
On StackExchange sites, downvoting costs you karma—so it’s not a conserved Karma currency, but it’s still a use of Karma to prevent unwanted behaviors.
This is an interesting idea. The main qualm I have is with spam- am I going to spend my precious karma on hiding jewelry advertisements?- but otherwise it seems the right disincentive for being critical.
Well, ideally if a moderator deleted your comment as spam you’d get your karma back; or maybe downvoting shouldn’t be used as a way to deal with spam (there is a “report” button for that).
Down-voting contributes to site negativity, bad vibes, etc. On the other hand you don’t want to discourage users from interacting and providing feedback too much. It would be interesting to learn more about where the sweet spot here lies.
A spammer could very straightforwardly get as many votes as they wanted by creating sufficient accounts to that end. This would be exactly as effective as a dialog on the submit page that says “Put the letter after Q in the alphabet in the dialog to submit”: ie it will stop any bot that is not tuned to this site, but allow through any that is.
Not giving zero-Karma users leave to vote will stop this breach as well. (A more thorough solution would involve a form of conserved Karma currency—I wonder if this is in use anywhere—you could even introduce advanced instruments such as Karma loans.)
Yes, requiring karma to vote would stop this and would I think be a good idea, though it’s more development effort still. After that, see Raph Levien’s paper on “Attack Resistant Trust Metrics”.
Not as such, but the same purpose is frequently served by making votes give karma according to the karma of the voter.
On StackExchange sites, downvoting costs you karma—so it’s not a conserved Karma currency, but it’s still a use of Karma to prevent unwanted behaviors.
I would get a lot of pleasure out of spending my karma to penalise stupidity. Let me at them. :D
This is an interesting idea. The main qualm I have is with spam- am I going to spend my precious karma on hiding jewelry advertisements?- but otherwise it seems the right disincentive for being critical.
Well, ideally if a moderator deleted your comment as spam you’d get your karma back; or maybe downvoting shouldn’t be used as a way to deal with spam (there is a “report” button for that).
Down-voting contributes to site negativity, bad vibes, etc. On the other hand you don’t want to discourage users from interacting and providing feedback too much. It would be interesting to learn more about where the sweet spot here lies.
Exactly. But for now, that should be good enough.